Paper Titles & Abstracts

The aim of this paper is to conceptualise EU's external diplomatic performance in relation to its Eastern neighbours. With the introduction of the Lisbon Treaty the general expectation was that there will be a stronger, more efficient, more coherent EU on the international arena. The creation of a new institution, the European External Action Service (EEAS), especially aims at strengthening EU diplomatic actorness. Whereas in Bruxelles the EEAS stands for a unified diplomatic system, according to the Lisbon Treaty, in EU's neighbour countries this remains a challenge. Hence, the question that is central to this paper is: how does the EU perform as a diplomatic actor in partner countries post-Lisbon?In order to answer this question the paper will look into the literature on EU actorness, on diplomacy and on organisational management in order to derive indicators of EU diplomatic performance. The paper's analytical model proposes analysing EU diplomatic performance in relation to three main indicators: (1) effectiveness (reaching pre-set goals); (2) relevance (of EU international actorness, i.e. how it is recognized by other actors on the international arena and relates to EU's issues of being a unified actor, agreeing upon a common position etc.) and (3) capability (ability to mobilize (human, financial etc.) resources). The paper will evaluate EU diplomatic performance in the three immediate Eastern neighbours of the EU - Moldova, Ukraine and Belarus - through examining EU's democracy promotion agenda in these countries.